“What happens after they divide fifty times?” asked Desh.
“They die,” she said simply.
Desh pondered this for a few seconds. “What about cancer cells?” he asked.
“Good question. Cancer cells are the exception. They’re the immortals among cells. Not only will they go beyond fifty doublings, they’ll continue doubling forever. It’s this unconstrained growth that eventually makes them deadly to their host.”
Desh was fascinated by all of this but he was out of his league and knew he needed to move on. “Let’s say I believe your longevity therapy works the way you say it does,” he began. “Let’s say I even believe you aren’t involved in bioterror. But here’s the question: if you really did discover the fountain of youth, why have you kept it a secret?”
Kira raised her eyebrows. “Because I didn’t want to be responsible for knocking humanity back to the Dark Ages,” she said simply.
David Desh spotted their waiter and motioned him over. They were in a dark, comfortable little corner of the vast mall and his fear of being discovered was waning by the minute. They had time before they had to catch the bus and he was in no hurry to leave.
“Can you start a new check for us?” asked Desh when the waiter arrived.
“Sure, what can I get for you?”
Desh quickly leafed through the menu. “We’ll both have hot fudge sundaes.”
The man nodded and hurried off.
“Hot fudge sundaes?” said Kira.
“I want an excuse to stay here longer,” he explained. He allowed himself to smile. “Besides, when I’m talking to you my brain needs all the glucose it can get.”
She looked almost bashful. “Sorry to have to throw so much at you at once. I know it’s like drinking from a fire-hose.”
Desh grinned at this. “Not at all. Once again you have me intrigued,” he said. “So please go on.”
“Smith told you his theory as to why I’ve kept longevity a secret,” she said. “To acquire great power and wealth.” She shook her head in disgust. “Nothing could be further from the truth. I’d love to share the treatment. The problem is, when I was still enhanced, I considered what the world would be like once I did. The conclusions I reached were shocking.”
Desh tried to guess where she was heading, but couldn’t.
“If everyone lives to be 150,” continued Kira, “what happens to the world’s population?”
For a moment Desh wondered if it was a trick question. He shrugged. “It would go up,” he said.
“It would go up,” she repeated. “A lot. At least as many people would be born each year but far fewer would die. And women would be at reproductive age twice as long. The planet is already overcrowded and getting steadily worse. Introduce my therapy and everyone would need to make room for their great, great, great grandparents.” She shook her head emphatically. “Doubling the span of human life would be an absolute disaster.”
“It’s true our society would have to make changes,” acknowledged Desh, “but you can’t be sure the effects would be catastrophic.”
“Overpopulation doesn’t just have physical effects, it has psychological effects as well,” she said. “A fascinating experiment was done on Norway rats years ago. The experimenters confined a population of them in a quarter-acre enclosure, provided plenty of food, and removed all predators. They expected the rat population to climb to 5,000, but it didn’t. It stabilized at 150. When they forced the population to exceed a comfortable density, even with unlimited food, they saw a dramatic increase in pathologic rat behavior. Withdrawal, cannibalism, homosexuality, and other uncharacteristic behaviors emerged.” Kira raised her eyebrows and eyed Desh knowingly. “You think human stress goes up a notch or two the more crowded it gets?”
Desh frowned. It didn’t take a brilliant scientist to answer this question.
“While enhanced, I quickly realized that if I made the therapy public, the population would reach critical levels very quickly. Within a few generations, at most, humanity would either be reduced to small populations living in Dark Age conditions or extinct. I’ve since run a number of computer simulations.”
“And?”
“And the simulations match my intuition exactly. There are a range of possible scenarios, but I’ll give you one of the more likely ones. The skyrocketing population results in vast economic collapse as resources are depleted and the number of jobs can’t expand as quickly as the need for them. Economies are geared to a retirement age of sixty-five or so, and an average lifespan of around eighty.” Kira paused. “You even joked about the need for an immortal to have a large retirement nest egg,” she reminded him.
Desh frowned. He had made the joke but had failed to consider its implications.
“We also spoke about longevity as a burden to younger generations,” she continued. “It is. Along with economic collapse, population growth causes conditions to get more and more unsanitary. Contagious diseases spread like wildfire. Massive famines become common. Fighting for survival and fueled by increases in aberrant human behavior, countries war on their international neighbors and soon unleash a nuclear Armageddon on the planet.”
Desh blanched. It sounded chillingly plausible. “But wouldn’t world governments realize the threat and implement strict birth-control policies?”
“Maybe. Doubtfully, but maybe. But is that what you would want? Buying increased survival at the expense of your offspring? This may sound perfectly reasonable to me when I’m enhanced, but the thought of it sickens me when I’m not.” Kira paused. “There is little doubt. Springing a seventy or eighty year life extension on the world would lead to the end of civilization.” She frowned and looked utterly disheartened.
The depth of despair on her face took Desh by surprise. “Kira?” he said gently, “are you okay?”
She nodded, but the sadness didn’t leave her eyes. “Just feeling sorry for myself,” she said softly. “My every effort blows up in my face. I can transform myself to a fantastic level of intelligence, but at the cost of becoming ruthless and losing much of my humanity. I find a way to dramatically slow the aging process, only to realize that doing so will destroy civilization.”
Desh sat in silence, unable to think of anything to say. He could understand her frustration. She was a modern day Midas, the king who was thrilled to be granted a touch of gold until he realized the devastating consequences: he couldn’t prevent his food or beloved daughter from turning into gold as well.
They sat in silence as the waiter arrived with their desserts. Kira put a spoonful of vanilla ice-cream and hot fudge into her mouth and swallowed unhappily. Desh found himself wondering if a being of infinite intelligence would still enjoy the taste of fudge.
As Desh began working on his own sundae he decided to change the subject. Kira still had Lusetti and her brother to explain, but he was beginning to think she would. “So what happened after you realized you couldn’t reveal your discovery?”
“I decided to throw in the towel. I vowed to stop all experiments on longevity and to never use my brain optimization therapy again.” She waited patiently for excess fudge to finish dripping off her long spoon so she could bring it to her mouth. “But it goes without saying the story didn’t end there. Someone had been keeping track of me, not with listening devices but the old fashioned way. I didn’t know it at the time, but Larry Lusetti, a Private Investigator, had been hired to keep tabs on me. He went through my garbage and spied on me through my windows like a peeping tom. It didn’t take long for him to discover I had stopped all experimentation.”